An Exercise in Metacognition

 

Metacognition = thinking about thinking

 

We have a group of students who come to Jesus People USA every fall to attend our Project 12 discipleship school.  We are experimenting with what is called a flipped classroom. About a year ago we started a class called Everybody’s Study Club. It was to be a test of the flipped classroom paradigm. Let me try to explain. A flipped classroom is doing the opposite of what traditional classrooms do. Normally the class meeting is used for media presentations and lecture, then sometimes tests to see if the students understand. Basically the class time is used to gather facts about the subject and to understand the facts and they to demonstrate mastery in a testing situation. These activities exercise mostly lower order thinking skills (LOTS) and we spend lots (most of our) time in school thinking this way.

A flipped classroom does all of what is done inside the normal classroom, outside of class as homework. There may be a movie to watch. The teacher sends a DVD home with the student. There may be a lecture or a demonstration. Again the teacher records the lecture and demonstration and sends a video home with the student. There may be a reading assignment assigned to gather more facts.

The students then come to the flipped classroom where they come face to face with the HOTS (higher order thinking skills through discussion questions asked by the teacher or through other classroom exercises. The LOTS and HOTS are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy which every teacher trained since the 1950’s probably knows about. The flipped classroom is only one application of the technology out of many. Bloom is all over the internet.

The way we at JPUSA experimented with the flipped classroom is in what we call Everybody”s Study Club. Really it is just a Sunday school class. But with some pretty dedicated adult students. Can you imagine giving homework for Sunday school? I want to give a shout out for our curriculum providers, III Millennium Seminary at http://thirdmill.org/seminary/s . These folks provide seminary classroom videos at no charge. They are produced for missionaries and indigenous peoples in many languages. I hope there is a special place in the New City for these generous folks and the people who support them financially. Of course their presentations offer a theological viewpoint but they obviously try to embrace rather than exclude in the words of Miroslav Volf. Differences make for great discussions.

A little more about Bloom. Below is a triangle of his taxonomy. It is called a taxonomy of the cognitive realm. A taxonomy is an arrangement from lesser to greater of any kind characteristic, in this case of simple thinking skills to complicated thinking skills. Generally the academic community accepted his breakdown with enthusiasm and only later in the last century made two changes, now called Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. They reversed the order of the top two thinking that creativity is more complex than evaluation. I can see the sense of that. And the second change was in the words themselves. Instead of using noun or adjective descriptions, they proposed the more active verbally based words, going from Creation to creating, for instance. I like that too. In case you want to follow this a little more closely let me give you a chart centered on using bloom’s taxonomy to ask questions.

 

Sample Question Stems Based on Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy

 Remembering

 Who?

Where?
Which one?
What?
How?
Why?
How much?
How many?
When?
Can you name all the…?
Who spoke to …?
Which is true or false?
 
Understanding
 
What does this mean?
Which are the facts?
State in your own words.
Is this the same as …?
Give an example.
Select the best definition.
Condense this paragraph.
What would happen if …?
Explain why . . .
What expectations are there?
Read the graph (table).
What are they saying?
This represents . . .
What seems to be …?
Is it valid that …?
What seems likely?
Show in a graph, table.
Which statements support …?
What restrictions would you add?
Outline. . .
What could have happened next?
Can you clarify. . .?
Can you illustrate . . . ?
Does everyone think in the way that … does?
 
Applying
 
Predict what would happen if ...
Choose the best statements that apply.
Judge the effects of …
What would result …?
Tell what would happen if …
Tell how, when, where, why.
Tell how much change there would be if …
Identify the results of …
Write in your own words …
How would you explain …?
Write a brief outline …
What do you think could have happened next?
Who do you think…?
What was the main idea …?
Clarify why …
Illustrate the …
Does everyone act in the way that … does?
Draw a story map.
Explain why a character acted in the way that he did.
Do you know of another instance where …?
Can you group by characteristics such as …?
Which factors would you change if…?
What questions would you ask of…?
From the information given, can you develop a set of instructions about …?
 
Analysing
 
What is the function of …?
What’s fact? Opinion?
What assumptions …?
What statement is relevant?
What motive is there?
What conclusions?
What does the author believe?
What does the author assume?
State the point of view of …
What ideas apply?
What ideas justify the conclusion?
What’s the relationship between?
The least essential statements are …
What’s the main idea? Theme?
What literary form is used?
What persuasive technique is used?
Determine the point of view, bias, values, or intent underlying presented material.
Which events could not have happened?
If … happened, what might the ending have been?
How is … similar to …?
What do you see as other possible outcomes?
Why did … changes occur?
Can you explain what must have happened when …?
What were some of the motives behind …?
What was the turning point?
What are some of the problems of…?
Can you distinguish between …?
 
Evaluating
 
What fallacies, consistencies, inconsistencies appear?
Which is more important, moral, better, logical, valid, appropriate?
Find the errors.
Is there a better solution to…?
Judge the value of …
What do you think about …?
Can you defend your position about …?
Do you think … is a good orbad thing?
How would you have handled…?
What changes to … wouldyou recommend?
Do you believe …?
How would you feel if …?
How effective are …?
What are the consequences of …?
What influence will … have on our lives?
What are the pros and cons of…?
Why is … of value?
What are the alternatives?
Who will gain and who will lose?
 
Creating
 
Can you design a … to…?
Can you see a possible solution to …?
If you had access to all resources, how would you deal with …?
Why don’t you devise your own way to …?
What would happen if?
How many ways can you …?
Can you create new and unusual uses for …?
Can you develop a proposal which would…?
How would you test …?
Propose an alternative.
How else would you …?
State a rule.

Adapted from the following sources: Pohl, Michael. Learning to Think, Thinking to Learn: Models and Strategies to Develop a Classroom Culture of Thinking.
Cheltenham, Vic.: Hawker Brownlow. 2000; Tarlington, Denise. “Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.” Powerpoint;
www.center.iupui.edu/ctl/idd/docs/Bloom_revised021.doc, February 8, 2006; http://eprentice.sdsu.edu/J03OJ/miles/Bloomtaxonomy(revised)1.htm
WCPSS AG Program 2009 Toolbox for Planning Rigorous Instruction Section 5: Thinking

And here is your assignment: (Teachers can’t help it.)Write one question for each of Bloom’s levels.This assignment centers in on the application level but you will have to rise to the creative level at times. Or you could just evaluate me low on the affective taxonomy (Bloom has one of those also) and forget about it as they say in the gangster movies.